Self-driving cars programmed to decide who dies in a crash

by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — Consider this hypothetical:

It’s a bright, sunny day and you’re alone in your spanking new self-driving vehicle, sprinting along the two-lane Tunnel of Trees on M-119 high above Lake Michigan north of Harbor Springs. You’re sitting back, enjoying the view. You’re looking out through the trees, trying to get a glimpse of the crystal blue water below you, moving along at the 45-mile-an-hour speed limit.

As you approach a rise in the road, heading south, a school bus appears, driving north, one driven by a human, and it veers sharply toward you. There is no time to stop safely, and no time for you to take control of the car.

Does the car:

A. Swerve sharply into the trees, possibly killing you but possibly saving the bus and its occupants?

B. Perform a sharp evasive maneuver around the bus and into the oncoming lane, possibly saving you, but sending the bus and its driver swerving into the trees, killing her and some of the children on board?

C. Hit the bus, possibly killing you as well as the driver and kids on the bus?

In everyday driving, such no-win choices are may be exceedingly rare but, when they happen, what should a self-driving car — programmed in advance — do? Or in any situation — even a less dire one — where a moral snap judgment must be made?

The world’s brightest minds sketch a bleak picture of the future of Planet Earth. Is it too late to save our species and preserve the environment?

By Jasper Hamill

GETTY IMAGES

The scientists believe environmental impacts were likely to inflict ‘substantial and irreversible harm’ to the Earth

MORE than 15,000 scientists from around the world have signed a terrifying letter warning of an imminent apocalypse.

The message is called “Warning to Humanity” and is an ominous vision of the grim fate awaiting Planet Earth.

The message updates an original Warning from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which was made in 1992.

Now the global scientific community’s view of the future is even bleaker.

Apart from the hole in the ozone layer, which has now been stabilised, every one of the major threats identified in 1992 has worsened.

Runaway consumption of precious resources by an exploding population remains the biggest danger facing humankind, say the scientists.

They urge “scientists, media influencers and lay citizens” to put pressure on governments to reverse the trend.

A host of environmental calamities are highlighted in the warning notice, including catastrophic climate change, deforestation, mass species extinction, ocean “dead zones”, and lack of access to fresh water.

PREHISTORIC, DINOSAUR-ERA SHARK WITH INSANE TEETH FOUND SWIMMING OFF COAST OF PORTUGAL

This fish is rarely seen by humans but has lived on the Earth since long before man.

The rare frilled shark is considered a “living fossil” because evidence of its existence dates back to at least 80 million years ago. This summer, researchers found one alive and thriving off the coast of Portugal, uncovering more clues about the resilience of this ancient sea creature.

The researchers who discovered the shark off the Algarve coast were working on a European Union project in the area, the BBC reported. The goal of the project was to “minimize unwanted catches in commercial fishing,” the researchers told SIC Noticisas TV, as the BBC noted, but the team unknowingly unearthed one of the rarest and most ancient animals on the planet.

Scientists believe the frilled shark has remained the same, both inside and out, since the Cretaceous Period, when the Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops still roamed the planet. The creature, known by scientists as Chlamydoselachus anguineus, is incredibly simple and unevolved, most likely due to the lack of nutrients found in its deep-sea dwellings. A Japanese study of the shark found in Suruga Bay, Japan, revealed that its diet is 61 percent cephalopods—the class to which squids and octopus belong.

We humans like to pretend we know a lot about space and the various objects that we’ve observed in it, but at the end of the day we find ourselves scratching our heads more often than not. The latest and perhaps best example of this is a star called iPTF14hls, which keeps exploding but refuses to actually die, like some sort of stellar zombie. Isn’t space awesome?

Typically, when a star explodes in a supernova, it’s a sign that the star is progressing in its life cycle, erupting in a firestorm that decimates everything in its path and ultimately results in either a burnt out blob of incredibly dense matter, a neutron star, or even a black hole. iPTF14hls refuses to do any of those things, and has instead decided to just keep exploding over and over again.

In a new research paper published in Nature, scientists reveal their observations of the peculiar star, and do everything in their power to explain how this could even be possible. The researchers explain that a supernova of the star was observed way back in 1954, at which point science would have us believe that it was about to move past that stage and enter whatever comes next, but that’s not what happened.

Man enjoys life after losing 3-foot-long penis

A Kenyan man with a 3-foot penis and 11 pound testicles is finally getting the chance to live a normal life — now that his massive package has been surgically reduced, reports said.

Horace Owiti Opiyo, known as Forence, first noticed a cyst on his genitals back in 2006 and had it removed — but it came back with a vengeance a year later, bringing the length of his penis to almost a meter, the Mirror reported.

The 20-year-old was forced to drop out of school and didn’t have the money to pay for surgery. He tried to use herbal remedies to help his condition but they didn’t work, the outlet said.

The most elite scientists in the world are still struggling to find why exactly our universe didn’t destroy itself as soon as it came into existence. That’s what science says should have happened – but it clearly hasn’t, since you’re here reading this, as far as we know.

At the beginning of the universe, according to the standard model, there equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. The trouble with that is that they would each have annihilated each other, leaving none of the matter that surrounds us today.

Researchers have been frantically looking for some difference between matter and anti-matter that could explain why the universe is still around. But they have tried a range of different possibilities – that they have different mass, electric charge, or something else – but have found no difference.

That has led researchers to question why the universe is still around at all.

Scientists have fantasised for centuries about humans colonising the moon. That day may have drawn a little closer after Japan’s space agency said it had discovered an enormous cave beneath the lunar surface that could be turned into an exploration base for astronauts.

The discovery, by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe, comes as several countries vie to follow the US in sending manned missions to the moon.

Using a radar sounder system that can examine underground structures, the orbiter initially found an opening 50 metres wide and 50 metres deep, prompting speculation that there could be a larger hollow.

The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale.

The company partnered with NASA in 2016 to attach an inflatable, soft-shell demo pod onto the International Space Station. Now, Bigelow has announced that a bigger inflatable pod, which it’s calling the B330 “lunar depot”, could be orbiting the moon in five years.

That moon station is much more ambitious than Bigelow’s ISS add-on. It’s designed to stand alone and is about a third of the size of the ISS. The company suggests the pod could hold roughly six people, and is billing it as a hub for “significant lunar business development.”

Providing accommodations for future space travelers is a logical next step for the company’s founder, Robert Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain and has been working on creating expandable space modules since 1999.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, plans to partner with Bigelow to launch the habitat into space, then get it circling around the moon.

Asteroid that just buzzed Earth may not miss on return visit

The house-size asteroid that just passed by Earth, almost as close as many satellites in orbit, will be back — and a future visit might lead to it taking up permanent residency here.

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, Asteroid 2012 TC4 safely passed by our planet at an altitude of 27,300 miles (44,000 kilometers), just a few thousand miles above the level of satellites in geosychronous orbit. That’s nearly twice as close as when it passed us almost exactly five years ago, about a week after it was first discovered in October 2012.

The most recent models of the space rock’s future path, which can be altered by Earth’s gravity each time it makes a close pass, have ruled out the possibility that it will impact Earth when it makes another close call in 2050.

The Future the US Military is Constructing: a Giant, Armed Nervous System

BY PATRICK TUCKER

Service chiefs are converging on a single strategy for military dominance: connect everything to everything.

Leaders of the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines are converging on a vision of the future military: connecting every asset on the global battlefield.

That means everything from F-35 jets overhead to the destroyers on the sea to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the multiplying devices in every troops’ pockets. Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network. The effect: an unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry.

In recent months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put together the newest version of their National Military Strategy. Unlike previous ones, it is classified. But executing a strategy requiring buy-in and collaboration across the services. In recent months, at least two of the service chiefs talked openly about the strikingly similar direction that they are taking their forces. Standing before a sea of dark- blue uniforms at a September Air Force Association event in Maryland, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had “refined” his plans for the Air Force after discussions with the Joint Chiefs “as part of the creation of the classified military strategy.”

The future for the Air Force? The service needed to be more like a certain electric-car manufacturer.

Doomsday Rescheduled: ‘Researcher’ Moves End Of The World To October

CBS Local — After Sept. 23 came and went without a rogue planet crashing into the Earth, some might think Christian numerologist David Meade would be out of the doomsday prediction

Meade predicted that a rogue planet named Nibiru would slam into the Earth on Sept. 23 and bring about a global apocalypse. NASA had publicly debunked the “Planet X” conspiracy theory in 2012, but it didn’t stop the self-published author from writing and speaking about the doomsday prediction.

Now that the fateful Saturday has passed, Meade has reportedly revised his schedule for the planet’s last day. The controversial doomsayer claims his Sept. 23 prediction was misinterpreted and that the world will actually end at some point starting in October. Meade now believes the new date will begin a seven-year period of world-ending events.

“That’s when the action starts. Hold on and watch—wait until the middle of October and I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed,” he wrote on his website. The former student of astronomy at the University of Louisville says his predictions come from deciphering codes in the Bible as well as other ancient markers like the Great Pyramids.

MIGHT ONLY EXIST IN YOUR HEAD. AND EVERYONE ELSE’S

In physics, they are all the same thing. But to you, me, and everyone else, time moves in one direction: from expectation, through experience, and into memory. This linearity is called the arrow of time, and some physicists believe it only progresses that way because humans, and other beings with similar neurological wiring, exist to observe its passing.

The question of time’s arrow is an old one. And to be clear, it’s not whether time exists, but what direction it moves. Many physicists believe it emerges when enough tiny particles—individually governed by the weird rules of quantum mechanics— interact, and start displaying behavior that can be explained using classical physics. But two scientists argue, in a paper published today in Annalen der physik—the same journal that published Einstein’s seminal articles on special and general relativity—that gravity isn’t strong enough to force every object in the universe to follow the same past»present»future direction. Instead, time’s arrow emerges from observers.

This all goes back to one of the biggest problems in physics, knitting together quantum and classical mechanics. In quantum mechanics, particles can have superposition. That is, one electron might exist in either of two places, and nobody can say for sure which until it is observed. Where that electron might be is represented by probability. Experimentally, this checks out.

However, the rules change when electrons start interacting with many objects—like a bunch of air molecules—or decohere into things like dust particles, airplanes, and baseballs. Classical mechanics take over, and gravity becomes important. “The position of electron, each atom, is governed by a probability,” says Yasunori Nomura, a physicist at UC Berkeley. But once they interact with larger objects, or become things like baseballs, those individual probabilities combine, and the odds of all those collective electrons having superposition decreases. That’s why you never see a baseball simultaneously disappear into the left fielder’s mitt while also soaring into the upper deck.

That moment when particle physics merge with classical mechanics is called decoherence. In terms of physics, it is when time’s direction becomes mathematically important. And so, most physicists believe time’s arrow emerges from decoherence.

NASA’s asteroid chaser swings by Earth on way to space rock

By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft swung by Earth on Friday on its way to a space rock.

Launched a year ago, Osiris-Rex passed within 10,711 miles (17,237 kilometers) of the home planet early Friday afternoon — above Antarctica. It used Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to put it on a path toward the asteroid Bennu.

Osiris-Rex should reach the small, roundish asteroid next year and, in 2020, collect some of its gravel for return to Earth. If all goes well, scientists should get the samples in 2023.

Friday’s flyby was a quick hello: The spacecraft zoomed by at about 19,000 mph (31,000 kph). NASA took precautions to ensure Osiris-Rex — about the size of an SUV — did not slam into any satellites.

The Rapture starts on Saturday as ‘Planet Nibiru’ collides with Earth — according to Christian numerologist

Citing verses in Luke 21:25 through 26, Meade thinks that the recent events like the solar eclipse and Hurricane Harvey are signs of the apocalypse. To make matters worse, there’s been an uptick in meteors falling to Earth. But rather than look at the science behind the increase in severity of storms or focus on the fact that most calendar years see two solar eclipses somewhere in the world, Meade sees a sign, The Sunreports.

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the Earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken,” says Luke 21:25.

“Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken,” Luke 21:26 continues.

For Meade, that translates into the end of the world and the Rapture being predicted for this Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017. Meade says he used numerological codes in the Bible to generate a “date marker” in the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

Nibiru is “a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians,” according to NASA. The first time it was predicted to fly by Earth and cause troubles were May 2003. It was also linked to the end of the world prediction for 2012.

“If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye,” NASA explained.

Another passage in Revelation 12:1-2 predicts the second coming of Christ.

‘Inspirational’ robots to begin replacing teachers within 10 years

Robots will begin replacing teachers in the classroom within the next ten years as part of a revolution in one-to-one learning, a leading educationalist has predicted.

Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said intelligent machines that adapt to suit the learning styles of individual children will soon render traditional academic teaching all but redundant.

The former Master of Wellington College said programmes currently being developed in Silicon Valley will learn to read the brains and facial expressions of pupils, adapting the method of communication to what works best for them.

“You’ll still have the humans there walking around during school time, but in fact the inspiration in terms of intellectual excitement will come from the lighting-up of the brain which the machines will be superbly well-geared for.

“The machines will know what it is that most excites you and gives you a natural level of challenge that is not too hard or too easy, but just right for you.”

He expected the National Union of Teachers to be “very alarmed” by the prospect.

‘Uncontacted’ Amazon Tribe Members Reported Killed in Brazil

Members of an uncontacted tribe in Brazil in 2008. Indigenous groups in the Amazon are under increasing threat.CreditFunai/Associated Press

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — They were members of an uncontacted tribe gathering eggs along the river in a remote part of the Amazon. Then, it appears, they had the bad luck of running into gold miners.

Now, federal prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation into the reported massacre of about 10 members of the tribe, the latest evidence that threats to endangered indigenous groups are on the rise in the country.

The Brazilian agency on indigenous affairs, Funai, said it had lodged a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in the state of Amazonas after the gold miners went to a bar near the border with Colombia, and bragged about the killings. They brandished a hand-carved paddle that they said had come from the tribe, the agency said.

“It was crude bar talk,” said Leila Silvia Burger Sotto-Maior, Funai’s coordinator for uncontacted and recently contacted tribes. “They even bragged about cutting up the bodies and throwing them in the river.”

The miners, she said, claimed that “they had to kill them or be killed.”

Police: Taco Bell Employees Fatally Shoot Armed Robber

Stock image (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

CLEVELAND (AP) – Police say three employees of a Cleveland Taco Bell opened fire on two armed robbers, killing one.

Police have said two masked robbers entered the restaurant early Wednesday and ordered three employees to lie on the floor. Police say three other employees pulled out handguns and opened fire, shooting one of the suspects six times. The other suspect ran off.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office on Thursday said the man killed was 24-year-old De’Carlo Jackson.

“Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass” Used to Be Literal

by Terynn Boulton

When someone is “blowing smoke up your arse” today, it is a figure of speech that means that one person is complimenting another, insincerely most of the time, in order to inflate the ego of the individual being flattered.

Back in the late 1700s, however, doctors literally blew smoke up people’s rectums. Believe it or not, it was a general mainstream medical procedure used to, among many other things, resuscitate people who were otherwise presumed dead. In fact, it was such a commonly used resuscitation method for drowning victims particularly, that the equipment used in this procedure was hung alongside certain major waterways, such as along the River Thames (equipment courtesy of the Royal Humane Society). People frequenting waterways were expected to know the location of this equipment similar to modern times concerning the location of defibrillators.

Smoke was blown up the rectum by inserting a tube. This tube was connected to a fumigator and a bellows which when compressed forced smoke into the rectum. Sometimes a more direct route to the lungs was taken by forcing the smoke into the nose and mouth, but most physicians felt the rectal method was more effective. The nicotine in the tobacco was thought to stimulate the heart to beat stronger and faster, thus encouraging respiration. The smoke was also thought to warm the victim and dry out the person’s insides, removing excessive moisture.

The Moon Is Full of Money

Capitalism in space.

BY POPE BROCK / ILLUSTRATIONS BY VEDANTI SIKKA

I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces … I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams and we’re all fucked, and enjoying the gentle paradox of it, the clink of the ice in my glass and the slumber of the dog.

By and by I found my gaze resting on the moon. There it was, the great provider: breeder of wonder, werewolves, and all those songs. The place where beauty meets philosophy, where hope and despair alike are lost.

Gnawing through the romance though was a little something I’d read not long before. An astrophysicist had claimed that the moon could save our planet. Not immediately: This would be in about 4.5 billion years when the sun explodes and roasts us in wrath and fire unless we get out of the way.

Frankly, the notion of Earth making a break for it seemed implausible to me, but this Canadian professor said we could do it by shooting off an army of rockets on the far side of the moon. Slammed out of its orbit by the collective blast, the moon would sail off with Earth, yoked by gravity, trailing behind it. A thousand years’ travel and we’re out of harm’s way—albeit dark and freezing unless we initiate phase two of the plan. As the sun receded in the distance, we would replace its rays with a trillion lunar argon arc lamps. A flip of the switch and the moon would become the sun: blue sky, puffy clouds, everything just as before.

Largest asteroid in a century to whiz by Sept 1

The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said

The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said.

The asteroid was discovered in 1981, and is named Florence after the famed 19th century founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale.

“Florence is the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet since the first near-Earth asteroid was discovered over a century ago,” said a US space agency statement.

It is one of the biggest asteroids in the Earth’s vicinity, and measures about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) wide—or about the size of 30 Egyptian pyramids stuck together.

“While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.

Devil’s Tower UFO Rendezvous aims to attract all the UFO enthusiasts

HULETT, WYO. (KOTA TV) – Something out of this world is coming to Hulett, Wyo., and the Devil’s Tower Area, so if you’re a UFO enthusiast you better save the dates.

September 14-16th, 2017, will be the 1st Annual Devil’s Tower UFO Rendezvous.

The convention will last all three days and does require registration fees for activities like field investigation training and attending any of the featured keynote speakers.

On the last day there will be a festival with many free activities throughout Hulett, including a UFO alien themed parade, costume contest with a small fee, a close encounters tower building contest, a barbecue cook-off and live music. Cash prizes will be awarded to the best parade float and costume.

How to Watch the Solar Eclipse Like a 1960s School Kid

Caption from LIFE. Fifth-graders at the Emerson School in Maywood, Ill. line up with backs to the sun and their eclipse / Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

If you are one of the lucky Americans in position to see Monday’s total solar eclipse —which will touch 14 states as it crosses the country from coast to coast — you’d do well to take a tip from 1963’s fifth grade class of the Emerson School in Maywood, Illinois. Wielding cardboard boxes and knives that today would surely get a kid suspended, the kids demonstrated for LIFE’s readers how to safely look at an eclipse.

During the solar eclipse of 1960, hundreds of people had suffered permanent eye damage from looking directly at the sun. With help from the Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness, Emerson students avoided the same fate by building Sunscopes, pinhole camera-like contraptions that indirectly project an image of the sun. The magazine offered instructions for those desiring to replicate the project at home: